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prendrefeu wrote:Color makes contrast, so it does matter, but the point is that Flouro by itself isn't more effective than other colors having contrast when the object is moving under all conditions.

A white safety vest w/ reflective strips on a moving object (read: mostly no constrast to the pattern, solid) is effective when the object is moving, but not as good as any-other-colour-vest w/reflective strips. Standing still? Flouro is o.k. Moving? Not any more effective than any-other-color that creates contrast with the reflective strips.

This isn't the case. (Most) human eyes detects green-yellow light better that other colors, even in the non-color sensitive peripheral vision. It's still the same cones that pick up the light.

Contrast of course is a factor, but hi-vis generally creates high contrast by its very rarity.

Krackor wrote:Please update us on your UK ordering. Do you know any sites that have these in stock now, or planning to have them soon? I didn't see them on the usual suspects.

It seems the UK places won't have it for awhile.

My email to Poc:

subject: POC Octal CPSC: 250 grams size medium

What's the story with this? Your web page says "CPSC 12.03 certified" and 195 grams for size medium, as do all of the reviews from last fall.

250 grams is not worth $270.

The initial response I got from Poc was:

thank you for your e-mail.Creating our first road helmet, the Octal, we managed to maintain a high level of coverage and protection and at the same time keeping the weight below 200 grams, thanks to the unibody shell construction.When POC launched the Octal, we had 2 things in mind. We needed to make the safest road biking helmet and the lightest helmet. The Octal absorbs more of an impact and offers more coverage than any other helmet on the market.

To which I responded:

Thanks. But the box says 230, 250, and 285 grams, not "below 200". What is the actual mass of units shipped to the United States?

So mass deltas are 40 g, 55 g, and 80 g. Since that scales so strongly with size, it's not just a buckle issue, and it's likely not just an additional cross-bar: I wonder if they increased the foam density as well. If so, that would be trading energy absorption for helmet survivability in 2 meter vertical drops. My guess is this tradeoff is bad for safety, not good.

That's what I suggest as possible. I don't know. If you design it to have to survive a 2 meter vertical drop, as opposed to a 1.5 meter vertical drop, and that requires moving to denser foam which absorbs less energy on shorter drops then you could well be reducing net safety on the lower-kinetic-energy drops. If it was a 3 meter drop it would become more about saving the helmet than saving the head.

I fear the helmets are constrained by tests which force focusing on a relatively narrow fraction of impact conditions. To me, there's no reason to believe the Euro version is less safe than the CPSC version, and I suspect the POC generally is safer than all of the other leading brands. But don't listen to me: I don't know what I'm talking about. Just conjecture.

Here's what the POC website shows on the Octal Aero CPSC pageOctal Aero (CPSC)...CERTIFICATION EN 1078, CPSC 12.03<Note: no weights are listed on this page>

Question: Does the Octal Aero CPSC really weigh the same as the Octal Aero EN, and in particular, in between the weight of the Octal EN than the Octal CPSC, or is this just an ambiguity or oversight on the website and no weight for Octal Aero CPSC is provided?

Well, it shouldn't be long before people start getting the CPSC version and doing weigh-ins on a regular basis. That should end the confusion about actual weights. In the meantime, let's keep this thread visible as a friendly reminder to any POC buyers.

And I definitely agree with the need to reinforce the test standards. Concussions and head injuries are no joke, and secondary concerns like style/marketing/weight hype fade to irrelevance in comparison to crash performance.

What the bike helmet industry needs is some kind of third-party group like the automotive Insurance Institute for Highway Safety or the Snell Foundation (motorcycle helmets). Sure, IIHS is bankrolled by the insurance industry, but that means their nit-picking tests provide a nice anal-retentive counterweight to the motor vehicle industry's lobbyist-dilluted government standards.

The biggest and most enduring half truth that I see repeated in the bike media echo chamber is, "helmet price is about style and features; all helmets meet the same standards." While partially true, it ignores the fact that different helmet designs will perform differently beyond the thresholds of the test. The current test is binary: pass/fail.

It would be nice to have a multi-tiered grading system and a breakdown of how the helmets performed in each of a battery of real-world impact scenarios. That would give consumers real information on which to base a choice, and it would provide a hot spur to manufacturers of low-ranking lids.